“Due to the lack of cooperation on the behalf of NIU instructors in the Student Association’s efforts to publish teacher evaluations, we are asking all students to abstain from filling out teacher evaluations,” states a Student Association flier.

The fliers were posted all over campus yesterday, after the SA voted Sunday night to promote a boycott of teacher evaluations. The SA voted almost unanimously, with only one member in opposition.

Despite the obvious importance of this issue to the SA, about 800 fliers were posted for the first time yesterday, as well as about 4000 fliers that were handed out to students while walking around campus.

Jason Klemm, junior criminology major, said he really had not heard anything about the boycott besides seeing chalk writing in front of Grant North Towers.

“I don’t understand why the SA is having us boycott the evaluations,” he said. “In fact, if I hadn’t seen the writing on the sidewalk, I wouldn’t even have had a clue that there was a proposition of a boycott.”

Furthermore, Klemm noted that in his opinion, the SA has not done a good job on informing students of the boycott nor on exactly what the SA hopes to see happen if the boycott is successful.

Jen Gross, senior anthropology major, said she heard about the evaluations from a floormate. Otherwise, she said she would not have known what the SA was proposing to students.

Some students felt since they had already filled out the evaluations in their classes, the boycott was now pointless.

Scott Kubelka, senior elementary education major, said he believes it is careless of the SA for not organizing the boycott better so as to inform the students enough time in advance to take part in the boycott of the teacher evaluations.

“I think the boycott is a great idea, but, hey—it’s too late for me now,” he said.

Shari Schooley, junior elementary education major, said although she has not heard much about the boycott, she can see the teachers’ point of view in this issue. “If the whole class gives a bad evaluation, then what is the teacher to do? If I were the teacher I wouldn’t want anyone to see that,” she said. Schooley said she would not participate in the boycott.

Shana Rempher, junior special education major, thinks that even if teacher evaluations were published and a teacher really looked awful as a result, some students would still have to take that teacher’s class because of time and day scheduling conflicts.

“We’re clients of the university and there should be some way for us to find out about teachers before taking a class, but maybe there should be a way to do that without invading the teacher’s privacy,” she said. Rempher said that she would not participate in the boycott.

Hank Dennis, senior biological sciences major, said the publication of the evaluations would help newer students better structure and schedule their classes, although it could hurt some professors’ tenure. Dennis said he will boycott the teacher evaluations.

Tim Ramsey, senior biological sciences major, said although a student can sometimes hear about how a teacher is in the classroom, he believes that the evaluations should be published, and in the cheapest way possible.

“I can see that publication of the evaluations might be bad in that it could lead to teachers tip-toeing around students, because I know that if a teacher angered me, I’d want to give him all zeros,” he said.

“But then again, it might be nice to have the teachers tip-toe a little because many teachers don’t make exceptions for students even in extreme cases. Yeah, I will boycott the evaluations,” he added.

Cherryl White, sophomore pre-business major, said she thinks the boycott is a great idea. “The university asks us to evaluate the teachers, but we never get any feedback,” she said. “We’re the ones who are supposed to be benefitting, but we never hear anything about the evaluations.” White said she will boycott the evaluations.